WAGRAU Stories

As the threat of famine looms not just over Serere, greater Teso sub-region and Karamoja due to prolonged drought that has led to poor first-season harvest, and possible delayed second-season planting, one lesson stands out clearly: empowering rural women with ownership, control and access over land and production resources is not only a matter of equality but also a matter of survival for all of us. The prolonged dry spell has severely affected crop production across the region on such an unprecedented scale that many fear famine is indeed imminent. Yet amidst these challenges, our women's groups under our Economic...

Meet Edith Atim, a resilient mother and widow of ten children who all depend on her for survival. With only 2 small gardens inherited by her late husband, it has always been impossible to grow enough food for both family consumption and business*. Yet life’s demands - medication, education, and clothing - cannot be grown from the soil. *(93% of Ugandans in Serere District farm - 70% of those are subsistence farmers - growing crops or raising animals to survive with little or no surplus.) When WAGRAU first met Atim in May 2023, her story was one we had heard many times before....

Barbara with her three children in 2023 $4 to save Barbara’s son was just the beginning.  Life can lead you into some dark places.  When suddenly you look around and realize you are completely alone.  This is how Barbara’s life had unfolded:  Barbara legally married her husband as a very young uneducated woman (you would likely call her “a girl”), as is common in rural Uganda in severely impoverished communities. They lived on her husband’s uncle’s small plot of land in a traditional round one room mud hut with a thatched roof; hiring themselves out to dig in other’s small...